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Mycycle Tours begin again
Top Tips
Number One
It always takes longer than you expect!
You’ve decided to visit India, maybe for the first time. Although regular travellers, including myself, make exactly the same mistake, of not accounting for the fact that everything takes longer. Its all part of the challenge.
To have decided to come here you’ve already been on a sort of journey. You’ve had to reject some of the lurid tales, the negative publicity, the lack of decent information coming from the authorities.
We know its going to be challenging in one way or another but we also know its going to be immensely rewarding.
Its going to cost a fair amount just to get to India. If we’re lucky we’ve managed to get plenty of time to be here but its such a big, varied, fascinating place, there is the tendency to try and fit in too much, however much time you have!
The one thing we sometimes forget in our enthusiasm is it always takes longer to do ANYTHING in India! Whether its travelling from A to B, getting a SIM card, ordering a meal (sorry sir we don’t have that), booking things when they don’t accept a foreign debit card, reserving a train journey (online) when you have to register with your passport details and sometimes a local phone number. It can all seem both complex and transient.
You’re now on shifting sand.
Its always useful to remember that these things are part of your experience, but it must be said, that it mostly takes longer than you expect because there is just so much to do, to take in and to absorb as 
it’s such a wonderfully diverse, idiosyncratic, bonkers place.
So please remember, our number one tip is that when you’re planning your India itinerary:
allow plenty of flexibility as you’ll wish to stay longer in some places,
assume it takes a day to travel between places
you might get tired travelling and it can feel FULL ON, so build in relaxing places where you can get a bit of respite and find the switch off button
its a fascinating place and most people love to get ‘under its skin’ and that means allowing for depth and not just breadth
Because EVERYTHING Takes LONGER than you EXPECT..
Bio note
Stephen is from the UK and has now lived in Mysore for seven years. He continues to visit London to deliver training workshops for business. He knows very very little about lots of things.
Manjula tolerates Stephen
Lucy is sweet.
More details of our life here in Mysore can be found here.
So, what is there to do in Mysore?
How long to stay?
We are asked so often that we thought we’d show what visitors have experienced and thought after staying here.
Our current guests are an English family living in France with mum and dad and two pre teen children. It goes without saying they are a lovely group, gang, team….. They ARE staying here 😉 ALL our guests are great.
They have been here three nights and have covered the following:
Walk up Chamundi Hill followed by dinner in one of our favourite roof-top restaurants Hotel Roopa.
Next day after breakfast at our place, Vasanth in his auto rickshaw took them to the Silk Mill, followed by the Maharaja’s Palace and then the idiosyncratic art gallery at Jaganmohan Palace. Royal Mysore Walks provided a walking tour to introduce the city, market and street food. Dinner was veg Indian feast prepared by Manjula.
On the third day, it was equally packed. Pancakes for breakfast. A MYcycle tour of Srirangapatmam that lasted most of the day followed by late lunch at the riverside restaurant. Vasanth then helped them sort out their bus tickets to travel on to north Kerala on the fourth day.
Their verdict? We’ll let them speak for themselves.
To us, it has reinforced one key fact. They’ve had a wonderful time and managed to fit a lot in during their stay. As with most of our guests they wish to stay longer. Once people spend time here and realise it’s a lovely easy-going accessible city with year-round great weather and much more to do than they first thought, they all feel that. If it was possible to stay (it isn’t) our family might fit in another trip to the island, see some of the local artisans, art museum, sand sculptures, more of the countryside and even do a bit of shopping.
Please note: you can find more details of the highlights listed above in our page of ‘things to do in and around Mysore.’
Stephen is back in Mysore after a visit to the UK to meet his first granddaughter. The season is getting busier with four cycle tours in four days! Here are guests from Germany and Australia;
We often have requests from guests for postcards to send to family and friends or as a souvenir of their visit. We know its bit retro but eh….we’re therefore planning to publish a small selection for future guests.
Check the photos we’ve posted on flickr (click the link at the word POSTCARDS) and tell us which you’d like to see as a postcard. Select the top three and send the relevant letters (they are labelled A onwards) to tours@mycycle.co The overall preferred images will be published.
In addition if you have favourite photos or would like to see postcards of specific places in and around Mysore tell us and we’ll go out on a photo shoot.
Manjula's Mysore 